


Blue

by ScripStrel



Series: Puppy Love [4]
Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Background Relationships, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Flirting, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Getting Back Together, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Canon, Post-Squip, Prom, School Dances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-14 15:34:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18479170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScripStrel/pseuds/ScripStrel
Summary: Brooke is trying to mourn her disaster prom in peace. Her dress is torn, her mascara is running into raccoon facepaint, and the parking lot is emptying of limos and party busses, leaving her forgotten in the exhaust.For all intents and purposes, she's like Cinderella before the Fairy Godmother.But maybe Prince Charming will show up without her needing any magic at all.





	Blue

Brooke stared out at the moonlit pavilion. Car horns honked in the distance, headlights and tire tracks tattooing the parking lot. Crumpled napkins and sticky punch cups skittered like tumbleweeds in the chill breeze. She shivered.

She wasn’t sure what else she expected. It was silly, in retrospect, for her to have expected her junior prom to be picture perfect. Her life wasn’t a Disney Channel blockbuster and it never had been. Really, she just should’ve been glad it didn’t end like  _ Carrie. _

But  _ god _ had she wanted better than this. 

It was spring. It was a time of new beginnings and Brooke was  _ so _ ready to start over. She was going to look hot and go to a party. No, not a party. A dance. This was a formal event. There wouldn’t be puddles of beer and vomit soaking the carpet and upholstery and eventually feeling like they were soaking into her skin. There wouldn’t be casual hookups in every darkened bedroom she tried to take refuge in and there wouldn’t be reason to call the police  _ or _ the fire department. Her date wouldn’t think her outfit was just plain “original” and he wouldn’t go fuck Chloe upstairs and—

Anyway, this would be better. 

Yes, she knew this kid just asked her because he wanted to go to prom with the popular crowd. He was some swim team sophomore, who wouldn’t have even been able to go had Brooke not agreed, but he was nice enough and he looked good enough in his vest and bowtie for her to be perfectly content adorning his arm all night. 

But things eventually went to shit, as it seemed they always did. 

Chloe won prom princess, of course. Brooke didn’t care. Not one bit. She wasn’t even on the ballot, and it was fine. She wasn’t looking for a spotlight, she was looking for a new start, so when Chloe and Jake got to do the one obligatory slow dance as prom royalty, Brooke applauded along with everyone else and had her own mini waltz with Swim Sophomore, who stepped on her feet a lot, but it didn’t matter. 

That is, until after the dance, when Jake ditched Chloe—whom Brooke would later learn had bribed him into going with her—and Chloe got back in the only way she knew how: ruining Brooke’s night. 

Sure, it started off simply. She tripped and spilled her punch on Brooke’s shoes—sorry! Her bracelet snagged the strap of her dress while she was fixing her hair—well, it’s a good thing you had two; off-the shoulder is in style anyway. Brooke went to the bathroom for two minutes and came back to find Chloe making out with her date. 

Again.

Brooke didn’t even have the headspace to react over the DJ’s buzzing subwoofer. She simply gathered her stuff and marched out to the curb, tearing her cheesy photo booth picture strip into confetti as she went. Twenty minutes later, everyone else filed out. Brooke watched Chloe’s rented limo pull away with a puff of exhaust and without a second glance at her running mascara, frizzy updo, or abandoned, sticky heels. The swim team sophomore clambered in after Chloe and Jake with a far-off look and definite lipstick marks smeared on his jawline. 

She shivered again. Prom fashion was almost as much of a bitch as Chloe, leaving her with bare arms in the middle of night when it definitely wasn’t summer yet. 

“Brooke? What are you still doing here?”

She whirled around. She didn’t think anyone else was still— Didn’t need anyone seeing her like— “Nothing,” she said, frantically trying to wipe away the black tracks around her eyes. 

“Where’s your date?” Jeremy—oh god, she had to deal with Jeremy too—asked. “You—” He shook his head. “Yeah, you were definitely dancing with someone earlier.”

Brooke sighed. Not like she was going to get out of this. “He’s in the limo with Chloe,” she said. 

“Oh…” Brooke could hear the cogs turning in Jeremy’s brain. “She—”

“I don’t know what else I expected.”

He sat next to her on the curb, scuffing his secondhand dress shoe against the asphalt. “I’m sorry,” he said finally. 

Right. Jeremy was the one—“You don’t,” Brooke started. “I—” When had she gotten so bad with words? She shook her head. “It’s not your fault.”

“I mean, I never really said sorry for—” 

“No.” Fuck it. It wasn’t Jeremy’s fault. It wasn’t Swim Sophomore’s fault. It wasn’t even Brooke’s fault, no matter what dark fears gnawed at her gut. It was all Chloe. “I’m sorry she used you to get to me. I’m sorry for the swim team kid too.”

Chloe was the one ruining her life. Chloe was the one holding her back. She was the one tearing down every achievement and every idea and taking every good thing she had and pushing it against a wall to nip at its lips and grind against its crotch until it didn’t give two shits about her. Next to Chloe, Brooke would always be second-best, the second choice, because she would make sure it stayed that way. 

“You don’t even know his name?” Jeremy asked. Right. Prom. Her date.

“I’m not sure he told me,” Brooke admitted. “He didn’t—he just wanted to get in with the popular crowd. I was the easiest way there.”

She didn’t realize what exactly she’d said until Jeremy shriveled next to her. “I’m sorry,” he said again. 

Right. That’s why she hadn’t talked to Jeremy in six months. Brooke was second-best and always would be. She was a lower handhold to climb the ladder of society. It only made sense that the fuckboys would target her. She was pretty enough to make for a picture-perfect Snapchat story, but not so intimidating as to seem the type to ruin anyone’s life if things went south. Getting into her good graces (and probably into her pants if Chloe wouldn’t get in the way) was like shooting fish in a barrel of cliche romance tropes. She was a sucker for flowers and chocolates and cute, hand-holdy, couple shit. She was so  _ easy. _

Maybe she still craved it because she’d never really gotten it. It wasn’t Jeremy’s fault she couldn’t stand up for herself. It wasn’t his fault…

Or maybe it was. Most of the fall was still such a blur.  _ Jeremy _ didn’t seem to know what he’d been doing, and Brooke had a sneaking suspicion he hadn’t even had a choice in most of it, whether that be getting assaulted ( _ god, _ Chloe) or drugging the drama department. It was too out-of-character for the awkward geek kid she’d met in history freshman year. Things didn’t add up to him being in the same boat as Swim Sophomore, whatever the case. 

Whatever. It was six months ago. So, Brooke changed the subject. “I didn’t really expect to see you here,” she admitted. “No offense, I just didn’t think it was your scene anymore.”

“No, it’s—Uh…” Clearly, Jeremy wasn’t all that good with words, either. “Well, Michael and I were gonna throw a ‘not going to prom’ party, but then Rich asked Michael to go with him, and Michael really doesn’t do stuff like this and didn’t want to go alone, so I invited Christine and we made a little group. We, uh,” he rubbed the back of his neck. “We spent a lot of time at the snack table.”

“How are you and Christine doing?” Brooke asked. She tried not to have hard feelings. She really did, but she also knew that Christine was partially to blame for a lot of the fall, too. 

“She tried to teach me the Electric Slide and I slammed us both into the wall,” Jeremy said, deadpan and staring at Brooke like he was scared how she might react. His eyes were really blue in the starlight. She filed the thought away for later. 

Brooke let herself smile. “No, I meant like—aren’t you two together?”   


Jeremy almost burst out laughing. “What? No! I mean, yes, we were for like a month, but…” Suddenly self-conscious, he started fiddling with his jacket sleeves. “Well, I think I liked the idea of her more than I liked her, you know? And she’s not sure she’s ready for a relationship in general, and—We just decided we worked better as friends.”

“Oh.” That was… something. 

“Yeah.” Jeremy wouldn’t look at her. 

Brooke digested. Jeremy was… single? It sounded like Jeremy was single. That was… another thought for later.

Instead, she asked, “Rich and Michael?” She knew Michael just as Jeremy’s weird friend in the hoodie; he was the one who showed up at the play even though he wasn’t in the cast (right? Honestly, the whole night was  _ really  _ fuzzy). And Rich, well…

Rich was Rich. 

Jeremy laughed. “Yeah. I think Michael was too scared to say no?” He said it like he wasn’t sure. “I know Rich has had a bit of a crush on him since they met in the hospital, and Michael doesn’t believe me. He says Rich just wants to butter him up to get access to his weed stash.”

Brooke laughed. Sure, she could sit and digest the reminder that Jeremy and Rich were both hospitalized. She could sit and worry about how they were doing and if everything was really normal amongst the junior class again, but laughing was better. It was… gosh, it was probably the first time she’d laughed in  _ weeks. _ Certainly the first time all night. “Where are they, anyway?” Brooke asked, again ignoring the potential implications of her growing file folder of realizations. (File 3: She was laughing. She was happy. Jeremy was making her happy). 

“Last I checked, Rich and Christine were arguing over shotgun and Michael was trying to figure out directions on his shitty old GPS,” Jeremy said, grinning at the thought. 

They were both laughing now. “Sounds fun,” she said. “Must be nice to have…” Brooke felt her giggles fade in her throat. Must be nice to have fun. Must be nice to have reasons to laugh and people to want to laugh with and—Fucking—Chloe. “I don’t know,” she said, swallowing around a sudden bitterness on the back of her tongue. “Decent friends?”

Jeremy shrugged. “I mean, it’s still kinda new to me.” 

Brooke felt bad. She felt bad for herself, obviously, still freezing her ass off in a prom dress with a broken strap and tacky, punch-stained heels off to the side. She was still plopped down on the grimy curb of a shitty wedding venue while all of her peers were off partying and having after-prom sex in their high-end hotel rooms. Her makeup was a mess and she wanted to curl up in bed with a tub of ice cream.

But she felt bad for Jeremy too. He’d changed so much over the course of the school year. He was a complete nobody, then he was her kinda awkward and kinda dickish boyfriend, then he was the talk of the school in all the worst ways, and then he was forgotten again. Now, he sat next to her, and from what he’d said, he had a pretty good night. Sure, not an A-lister’s dream prom, but a fun time with his friends. And now, he was spending his time consoling her, and how did she repay him? By mentioning things just awkward enough to bring up the shitty stuff he’d probably gotten over already. 

Needless to say, it was a rather awkward silence.  

Jeremy broke it. “Uh… I really like your dress by the way,” he said. “The layers are cool.”

“Chloe said it made me look like a cupcake.”

He laughed for a second, before realizing she was serious. “She did?”

“She also said I shouldn’t try to pull off blue,” Brooke said. Really, that sucked too. Brooke liked the dress. The tiered ruffles might’ve been rather cake-like, but they also made her feel like a fairy princess or something equally as cliche. Or like Glinda the Good Witch if she wore blue instead of pink… She wore blue in that one musical, right? Brooke liked the color blue, if only Chloe—

Anyway, call her childish, but she liked feeling pretty. Was that so wrong? “She said people without blue eyes shouldn’t try to wear light blue,” Brooke said.

“Why not?” Jeremy’s eyes were blue. A really pretty sort of pale sky blue. It was a good color for him. Why didn’t she notice before tonight?

Brooke shook her head. “Something about me not being a winter? Honestly, I’ve never understood fashion rules.”

“Fuck fashion rules,” Jeremy said. “I think it makes you look like Cinderella.”

“Really?” Brooke asked, giggling. 

Jeremy was starting to resemble a strawberry, with a bright pink blush climbing all the way to his ears, but he kept talking anyway. “Well, yeah,” he said, voice pitched a little higher than it had been before. “The light blue ball gown with blonde hair? All you need is glass slippers.”

Something about the way his hair ruffled and curled around his pink-tipped ears warmed something in Brooke’s blood, and hey, any warmth was welcome in the icy April night. “My shoes are a little sticky right now,” she said, gesturing to her abandoned heels. 

“You know,” Jeremy said, fumbling for words and resolutely not looking at her, somehow getting even redder, “in the original story, the prince put sticky stuff all over the stairs so she couldn’t run away and that’s why she lost the slipper.”

“I don’t think I want Chloe to be my Prince Charming.”

“Well…” He shifted awkwardly, going to kneel in the gutter in front of her. Brooke’s stomach swooped into her chest, partially because he was going to ruin the pants of his suit and mostly because her file folder was in the process of exploding. “Who said she had to be?” Jeremy asked, grabbing one of her shoes and holding it out to her like an offering to royalty. 

He was—gosh, he was cute. Looking up at her with those forget-me-not puppy eyes and tousled hair and rosy cheeks. He was looking at her like she  _ was  _ a princess. Like she deserved to be so much better than second best. And sure, he was still Jeremy. He was still wearing a suit that didn’t fit him quite right and his hands were quivering as if he was half afraid she’d hit him over the head with the other shoe, but. Gosh. It was like a spotlight had gone on above him, reminding her exactly why she liked him. 

“Jeremy Heere, are you flirting with me?” she asked, laughing. Because she did like him. She really did, and part of her always had. She wouldn’t have been so heartbroken on Halloween if she hadn’t legitimately thought he was cute and sweet and worth her time. 

“Uh… Yes?” Jeremy’s face went from strawberry pink to firetruck red in an instant. “I mean… Like, kinda? If you don’t want me to be, that’s—” Jeremy was tripping over his words, starting to pull away and apologize and Brooke wasn’t having any of it. 

She ruffled his hair and leaned in the most awkward way possible to kiss him on the cheek. His flushed skin was hot against her lips. “Thanks.”

As long as Jeremy thought she was worth his time, she could totally consider him worth hers again. 

“For?” he asked, voice cracking and hand drifting up to ghost over her lipstick mark. 

“The slipper,” Brooke said with a smile.

“Oh! Uh, yeah…” Jeremy stood and handed her the shoe. “Um…” He was wiping his hands on his pants and generally looking like he wasn’t sure whether to run or hug her or vomit. Preferably not the last one. “Do you maybe want a ride?” he asked. “I mean, if you came here with Chloe and she left without you?”

_ Yes. _ Yes, she undoubtedly wanted to go home and forget her prom disaster, and she especially wanted to—what was it she said before?—have actually decent friends, and Jeremy’s were a place to start, but, “Isn’t Michael’s car tiny?”

He shrugged, eyes trained on an hors d'oeuvres napkin fluttering in the distance. “Well yeah, but Rich and Christine don’t take up much space. It’ll be fine.” 

Brooke laughed. “Sure, thanks.” 

Maybe it hadn’t been her dream prom. Maybe it hadn’t even been decent, but as Jeremy helped her to her feet and started leading her—barefoot, mind you, considering her shoes were still gross—hand-in-hand across the parking lot (and apologizing profusely for his hands being sweaty, even though Brooke couldn’t give two shits about it), she thought it could’ve been a whole lot worse. 

Hey, if nothing else, she didn’t need to sit in the limo with Chloe, a disinterested Jake, and her not-date. Maybe spring _was_ a time for new beginnings. 

“So if I’m Cinderella and you’re Prince Charming,” she started.

Jeremy seemed to read her mind. “What does that make Chloe?”

“Yeah.”

He smirked. “Oh, she’s an evil stepsister, for sure.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hesitate every time I want to write Puppy Love, because I know it's a rarepair and no one will read it, but I love these two too much not to.  
> It's also been a while since I've written a Brooke fic, so here we go.  
> I think this might be the first time I've ever written Expensive Headphones, even if they were only a cameo, so that's fun.  
> I adore feedback, so please feel free to tell me what you think!


End file.
